Who runs the world? Girls. And running the world is hard, so girls and women everywhere need some nifty AF products to help them in their quest to take over. If you’re a woman trying to adult in today’s society, these are some things you definitely either need, want, or deserve to have in your life.

We hope you find these handy products as awesome as we do. Just an FYI: 22Words is a participant in the Amazon affiliate program, and may receive a share of sales from links on this page.

This isn’t just for counting your steps. You can also use this fitness tracker to monitor your sleep, count calories, and it even alerts you when you have a text message. This is like a lifeline on your wrist, for only $11. Can’t beat that.

You deserve the lighting you want. This adorable night light has six different atmosphere lighting settings from blues to pinks to yellows, to help you live your best-lit life. Oh yeah, it’s also a Bluetooth speaker.

This miracle product is roll-on aromatherapy relief for even the toughest of headaches. A mix of peppermint, spearmint, and lavender oils right at your temples or on the back of your neck will fight off an oncoming migraine or a headache in an all-natural way.

It’s a fact that all grown-AF women have plants. It’s just a thing that is true. These adorable planters will make your little ones feel right at home, and they might even motivate you to remember to water them!

Instead of having to rummage around in a bag every morning for the brush you need, you can pluck it out of this brush holder right away, simultaneously feeling fancy and like you should have bought this way sooner.

Look, you’re a busy woman who is in the process of literally taking over the world. You don’t have time to measure something and then manually read the measurement. This digital tape measure will ensure you get the most accurate reading every single time.

The book is Basic Witches: How to Summon Success, Banish Drama, and Raise Hell with Your Coven, and you for sure need it in your life. Witches are fierce, just like you, and this book is all the motivation you need to be your best (witchy) self. Plus, the book has actual spells, and who hasn’t wanted to cast a spell?

Fill this stressed out woman with baking soda and put her in the fridge. She will soak up all those nasty odors and bad stenches from old vegetables you bought and then completely forgot about. Just like a real woman, she’s here to clean up everyone else’s messes.

Women who are grown AF should have at least one piece in their home that makes a statement. This clock, which looks like books, is exactly that type of piece. Put it on a shelf by itself, or surround it with actual books to throw off your guests.

These wine chill drops with chill a glass of wine 20 times faster than the refrigerator. So, if you just got home with the bottle and need a glass immediately, you no longer have to put it in the fridge and wait an ungodly amount of time for your grown-up juice.

That pesky area around your eyes can often show your fatigue. This anti-aging eye gel gets rid of wrinkles, puffiness, and bags under your eyes better than almost any other product out there. The more than 12,000 people who’ve reviewed this product seem to know what they’re talking about.

There’s nothing quite like coming home from a long day of kicking ass and making yourself a soothing cup of tea. And Hey Girl’s Feel Better Blend is perfect, especially on those days when you’re feeling under the weather. These tea bags are a delicious blend of lemongrass, echinacea, green tea, elderberries, ginger, ginseng, honey, and more that will heal and relax you to no end.

Plastic straws are extremely detrimental to wildlife and our planet. But who wants to give up drinking out of a straw? No one. That’s where stainless steel straws come in. Take it from someone who uses them: They’re worth it.

Real talk: Anytime I’m on a long flight, I wear a hoodie so I can pull up the hood while I sleep with my neck pillow. With this genius product, I don’t have to do that anymore! And neither do you! …Assuming you also do that…

Instead of just shoving everything in your suitcase like a child, these luggage organizers will help you not only fit everything in your suitcase, but they will also help you keep you underwear from touching the bottom of your shoes. And isn’t that just what we’re all always trying to prevent?

An instant camera might seem old-school, and it is, but that’s exactly why you need one! Grown AF women deserve physical, tangible photo albums that they can look back on and be like, “Aww! I was amazing! And I still am!”

There’s nothing quite as great as putting on a record. A real record. And this turntable lets you do just that. But it also connects wirelessly via Bluetooth to your phone or computer to play music that you haven’t been able to find on vinyl.

Raise your hand if every time you want to blow-dry your hair, you have to get down on your hands and knees and rummage through a disorganized under-the-sink space to find the thing. I thought so. This styling station eliminates that problem in one fell swoop.

As part of Marriott’s announcement on Monday that it would hybridize the Marriott Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards programs this August, the company also relaunched its Moments marketplace, which sells everything from zip-line excursions to sumo wrestling tutorials and cooking classes with master chefs.

For the first time, loyal guests can both earn and redeem points by shopping for these experiences—110,000 of them in all, across 1,000 global destinations. But anyone, regardless of their participation in Marriott Rewards, will also be able to buy a sunset cruise off Marriott’s shelf with good, old-fashioned dollars.

Marriott’s new Moments portal.

Source: Marriott

“The opportunity for us is to expand the travel experience for our members,” David Flueck, Marriott’s senior vice president of loyalty tells Bloomberg. “They’ve come to rely on Marriott for incredible brands and hotels; now we can deliver more to them.”

The pivot, he says, is about growing from a hotel brand to a lifestyle brand—something that Airbnb has already done with its own Experiences platform.

“Every brand in the travel space has to be more full-service,” explains Deanna Ting, hospitality editor at the travel industry website Skift. “It’s not a question of should they do this. For Marriott to compete, they have to do this.”

Here’s what it means for you.

Scale, Not Exclusivity

Marriott hosted a private concert with Keith Urban as part of its announcement this week—an example of the bookable experiences it will now sell on Moments.

Source: Marriott

Marriott’s overhaul of Moments—a platform that previously existed on a much smaller scale—is a direct result of the company’s spring 2017 acquisition of Place Pass, a meta-search site for local experiences.

But of the 100,000 plus experiences it now offers, only 8,000 are exclusive to Marriott and of the company’s own design.

Some of those include VIP access or front-row box seats at venues around the world, which Flueck says will be available “at every show.” Another subset are what Flueck describes as “once in a lifetime” experiences: a cooking class with Daniel Boulud in his private test kitchen, for instance, or surf lessons with legendary wave-chaser Laird Hamilton. Only a few dozen of these opportunities are available globally at any given time on an auction-only basis, selling for anywhere from 7,500 to 352,500 points; they cannotbe purchased with dollars.

A helicopter tour of Chicago.

Photographer: kokouu/iStockphoto

From a business standpoint, Marriott hopes that the “once in a lifetime” experiences will drive people to plan purpose-built trips, while such “local experiences” as the walking tours will cater to travelers planning a vacation or already on the ground.

It’s scale, not exclusivity, that sets Marriott apart. According to Bjorn Hanson, clinical professor at NYU’s Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism, it gives Marriott “a positioning advantage that exceeds any other company I could conceive of as a challenger.” Partnerships with Hertz and StubHub expand the scope of Moments further—travelers can use it for everything from their rental cars to private dinners and opera tickets. They can earn points on each of those purchases, whether they use a co-branded credit card or not.

Still, Hanson expressed skepticism that Moments would change consumers’ behavior. “It doesn’t have enough urgency to it,” he says. “I’m not sure this will drive people to make reservations that they otherwise wouldn’t have made.”

Limited Personalization

The Colosseum in Rome, one of the iconic sights that travelers can explore on guided tours booked through Marriott.

Photographer: Marco Rubino /EyeEm

Skift’s Ting says the program will be most successful if Marriott can make it adaptable, such as targeted marketing—a critical concern when the same platform is meant to serve guests of both budget brands like Courtyard by Marriott and such luxury ones as St. Regis. “I would hope they’re not going to steer a top-tier elite member to duck tours,” she jokes.

Harnessing consumer data for personalized service, as Starwood Preferred Guest has always done adeptly, will help. Artificial intelligence could, too. If deployed elegantly, Marriott may algorithmically know where you want to take your next trip—and what you want to do there—before you do.

“That’s the nice thing about our members,” says Marriott’s Fleuck. “We have 110 million of them, but we have gotten to know them very well over time.” He adds that “being able to deliver the right experience to the right members at the right time” is “absolutely the direction that we’re going in.”

For now, personalization is limited, which means that it’s still cumbersome to sort through Moments’ 110,000 offerings. The company has started to group activities by types within each destination—family fun, great for couples, good eat, and nightlife—but luxury travelers looking for a fully private experience, for instance, may have to sort through clutter before finding what they want.

The End of the Concierge?

Will Moments eclipse the concierge?

Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe

The biggest short-term impact of Moments may be how you, as a traveler, think about concierges and, to a lesser extent, travel agents.

If trustworthiness of concierge recommendations was already an issue, thanks to kickbacks, this will only intensify; Marriott is encouraging its staff to prioritize Moments in their recommendations, despite the fact that the company hasn’t actively vetted or quality controlled the experiences it purchased in the Points Pass acquisition. According to Fleuck, the company will look at user reviews to determine which experiences get cut from the roster.

“The luxury hospitality sector seems to be in an identity crisis right now, because so many traditional markers of luxury are not as essential anymore, including the concierge,” Ting explains. Hanson agrees. “Does the average 27-year-old want to go to a concierge—the person they think of as a white-haired gent in a tuxedo behind a desk—to find out where to go to dinner that night?” he asks, drawing attention to the fact that concierges today are more reservation-makers than recommenders.

Why bother the concierge when all these activities are right at your fingertips?

Source: Marriott

Marriott’s Fleuck sees it less as the end of concierges than an opportunity to redefine the role.

“The expectation is that we can bring our concierges’ immense and extraordinary local knowledge into the Moments platform,” he says. “It’ll take time to get there with 6,500 properties around the world, but we’d like them to really become our partners in this program.”

Travel agents will also have to prove their added value, or risk losing the customer to a seamless, online shopping experience—especially if loyal members believe they can get better value and earn points by booking their entire vacation through Marriott. And with Marriott-owned cruising on the horizon, the potential to book multiple types of vacations, and even port excursions, on one website may well become a reality. (Fleuck did not say that the company would be able to offer a best-price guarantee of activities as it does with direct hotel bookings.)

“It will be an education process,” says Ting about shifting consumer habits. “But gradually, travelers will start to think differently about how they book and plan their trips.”

Adds Hanson, “It redefines the relationship of the traveler with the hotel brand in a way that has never been done before.”

I swung by the accelerator’s new office a few days ago to meet each team. In a two-hour period, I found myself discussing everything from cryptocurrency to kitchen sanitation to gene sequencing.

Here’s what the companies are up to:

Acculis is building collaborative software for construction. One of the key features is a lightweight 3D model viewer that can be on accessed a phone, tablet or web browser. By making it easier to bring this information into the field, the team is hoping to reduce delays and mistakes.

Altru helps companies tap their employees for marketing and recruiting. Potential hires can browse through videos of team members answering questions about what it’s like to work at the company, and they can also post questions of their own. CEO Alykhan Rehmatullah suggested that this serves as an “antidote to Glassdoor,” allowing employees to share their authentic opinions in a more controlled and positive way.

The Clear Cut offers a concierge service for consumers to design their own diamond engagement rings. The idea is to offer a personalized experience and product at significant savings compared to the big-name jewelry stores. Eventually, the company could expand into other types of jewelry.

kpiReady is building tools for startups and small businesses to track their most important metrics. It’s offering data collection as well as visualization — so it should be quick and easy to create presentations and reports about how the business is doing. Investors could also use this to track how the startups in their portfolio are doing.

Kyso allows users to share their data science models. That means data scientists have to spend less time building models from scratch every time they’re performing a new study. It also includes tools for visualizing the results of those models.

Loom Network is a blockchain infrastructure company. The goal is to help developers create “Twitter- or World of Warcraft-scale apps on top of Ethereum,” with an initial focus on bringing game developers onto the platform.

One Step Software is building patient monitoring software for sober group homes. This can help family members keep track of how residents are doing. And on an aggregate level, it helps the homes see which approaches are succeeding.

PathSpot has built a device that can scan restaurant employees’ hands and detect the pathogens that can cause food-borne illness. If an employee fails the scan, they’re asked to wash their hands and then try again. And the scan itself should only take two seconds.

Rootine uses customers’ genetic data to create a daily regimen of nutritional supplements. These supplements are delivered in the form of “micro-beads” that can be added to foods like yogurt. The company already has 1,500 paying customers in Europe and is looking to expand to the United States.

Streamline Genomics aims to help clinicians and researchers use genomic sequencing. CEO Josette-Renée Landry said that 40 percent of patients with cancer would have received more effective treatment if their tumor had been sequenced. But while the cost of the actual sequencing has fallen, analyzing the “terabytes of data” remains a barrier. So Streamline’s software handles that analysis.

TypingDNA offers a new way to verify your identity, potentially replacing cumbersome two-factor identification methods like sending a temporary code to your phone. Instead, it analyzes the unique patterns of how users type. The company recently launched a Chrome extension.

Vertoe helps you store your luggage by leaving it at nearby businesses. If you’re checking out of an Airbnb, or if you’re heading to a concert or sporting event where you can’t bring a large suitcase, you can open up Vertoe, find a nearby location and pay just $5.95 per item per day. The company currently has more than 70 partner locations across New York City.

Sometimes you just start eavesdropping on a conversation at exactly the right time, and the result is a ridiculous quote that makes absolutely no sense. These people tweeted the most hilarious things they’ve overheard lately.

Overheard in the vendor area at #SIOP18:â€œIf my doctor ever tells me I have one day to live, Iâ€™m going to work a vendor booth at a trade show. Then my last day will feel like it will never end.â€cc: @OverheardatSIOP

Overheard on the bus:“Guy #1: I can’t believe it’s still this cold in April.Guy #2: I know. And now you’re starting to see all these scientists coming forward and admitting that climate change was just a hoax.”…ðŸ¤”

Welcome to the Shirk Report where you will find 20 funny images, 10 interesting articles and 5 entertaining videos from the last 7 days of sifting. Most images found on Reddit; articles from Facebook, Twitter, and email; videos come from everywhere. Any suggestions? Send a note to submit@twistedsifter.com

While some movies barely manage to throw together a half-assed screenplay involving giant robots and the Mark Wahlbergs they’ve come to love, others put painstaking amounts of intricate details onscreen … only to show them to us for, like, half a second. Since only complete losers (read: us) would ever notice these things, let us tell you about the coolest ones in recent memory.

WARNING: The following will spoil the heck out of some recent films!

7

The Last Jedi — There Are A Whole Bunch Of Hints About That Luke Twist

The controversial ending of Star Wars: The Last Jedi finds bearded hermit / alien colostrum connoisseur Luke Skywalker returning to save the day. In a moment that made us all wonder whether midichlorians provide no defenses against senility, he confidently struts alone toward an entire army of Space Neo-Nazis.

Lucasfilm“I was just coming to pick up some salt for my alien boob stew, but might as well …”

But we soon discover that Luke isn’t truly on the planet Crait. He’s still on the Island of Misfit Jedi, astral projecting an image of himself — a trick Jedi usually reserve for faking visits home at Thanksgiving. Other than the fact that Luke suddenly has a midlife-crisis-like dye job, there are a few other tiny clues to what’s going on before the twist is revealed.

Like, remember how the planet’s red surface is covered in a layer of salt (which we learn thanks to the Resistance’s resident planet taster)? As they duel, Kylo Ren creates red footprints, but Luke doesn’t.

Lucasfilm

LucasfilmBut a previous scene established that Skywalkers can fly, so …

Luke is also wielding his familiar blue lightsaber, which you may recall got wishboned earlier in the movie.

Lucasfilm“I had to buy a new one from some nerd at Comic-Con.”

Even more subtly, the falling salt snow never lands on Luke or his lightsaber. Even when he brushes his shoulder like the “before” guy in a commercial for Galactic Head & Shoulders, there’s nothing there.

LucasfilmBack in the island, a Porg took a crap on his shoulder at that moment.

Conversely, we specifically see the flakes land on Kylo Ren, and even hear them hitting his janky lightsaber.

Lucasfilm

And if all that wasn’t enough, right before all this goes down, Luke winks at C-3PO, as if to suggest he’s secretly up to something. Either that or he had nothing to say to the annoying robot butler his dad built as a nine-year-old. Which, fair enough.

6

IT — Pennywise Is Hidden Everywhere In The Town

Arguably, the true villain of IT isn’t Pennywise the Clown … though it’s possible we have a bias toward frustrated humorists who sometimes have to squat in a sewer. The real evil in the story is the town of Derry, and even adulthood itself. Lending credence to this idea is the fact that the movie Where’s Waldo‘d Pennywise throughout the town. First, he appears in a mural on the side of a building, like some kind of child-murdering Banksy.

Warner Bros. PicturesAre they trying to tell us that Stephen King was Banksy all along?

Warner Bros. Pictures“Wait, we’ll have to take it again. Magic clown in the back, can you stay still this time?” “Sorry, sorry.”

And most pants-wettingly, in the scene in which Ben visits the library, there’s an old woman creepily glaring at him in the background …

Warner Bros. Pictures

… who turns into a red balloon in the next shot. This implies that Pennywise can manifest as an elderly librarian, making us wonder why he even bothers with the clown form.

Warner Bros. PicturesThat, or it’s Pennywise’s grandma.

Near the end of the movie, bully Henry Bowers murders his dad after falling under the spell of a kid’s TV show controlled by Pennywise. He’s plainly visible in the TV …

Warner Bros. Pictures

… but what you might not have noticed is that this same show popped up earlier in the movie. It’s on the TV in the living room in Beverly’s house, and being watched by Eddie’s mom when we first meet her.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Warner Bros. PicturesHey, even outer-dimensional demons need a day job.

Of course, these scenes all occur prior to the scene with Henry, so we have no way of knowing that what looks like Lamb Chop’s Play-Along is brainwashing people into an evil stupor, like … well, like most TV shows, frankly.

5

Baby Driver — Baby’s Channel-Surfing Foreshadows The Finale

While it disappointingly wasn’t the cross between The Fast And The Furious and Boss Baby that we were all secretly hoping for, Baby Driver turned out to be a delightful caper about a young man named Baby who never stops listening to his iPod. It’s basically 2006: The Movie.

As we’ve mentioned once or twice, director Edgar Wright likes to cram his movies full of as many Easter egg-y details as physically possible, and Baby Driver is no exception. You might have already caught that an early scene of Baby channel-surfing foreshadows later scenes. For instance, Baby cribs a line from Monsters Inc. while later talking to actual monster Kevin Spacey.

TriStar PicturesWhat do you mean you don’t get the Senseless Animal Gore Channel in your cable package?

Later, Jon Hamm’s character Buddy is oddly likened to a bull. He’s “relentless” and will attack when he “sees red”.

TriStar Pictures

TriStar PicturesAlso, they’re constantly making out, so it’s established that he’s “horny.”

When Buddy and Baby eventually face off in a dramatic climax, their confrontation mirrors the bullfight — with Buddy literally seeing red.

TriStar Pictures

TriStar PicturesPictured: Mad Man

Like with the bullfight, Buddy is “bloodied but unrelenting,” and Baby must get out of his car and “try to end this on foot.” Buddy’s bull-like status is also underscored by the fact that he’s constantly clashing with Jamie Foxx, whose character is exclusively draped in red.

TriStar Pictures

TriStar PicturesHis name is “Bats,” and if several bats bite you, you end up red. Holy crap!

If all that wasn’t enough, in a movie stuffed full of deep cut music nerd references, it’s possible that Hamm’s character is named after legendary drummer Buddy Rich. And Rich happened to have an album called … The Bull. Or that’s just a coincidence and this is all BS.

4

Guardians Of The Galaxy — The Guardians’ Past Crimes Are Revealed By Their … Pants

Sure, the Guardians of the Galaxy have done some good and saved some lives, but let’s not forget that they all met up in prison and escaped before serving their sentences. Plus, it’s one of those maximum security space jails, so it’s doubtful they were arrested for things like jaywalking or illegally torrenting a pleasant mix of ’70s soft rock.

Marvel StudiosOr keeping wildlife without a permit.

So what did they do to land in the joint? One Redditor came up with the theory that their crimes were denoted by elaborate patterns on their prison-issued pants. Unlike most internet movie theories, this one was confirmed by director James Gunn, who went on to clarify that each color represented a different category of crime, and the dots and lines were an expression of its severity, kind of like a “Morse code” for felonies.

Marvel StudiosWhich one of the lines on Chris Pratt means “Being in Passengers“?

Gunn also recalls that the non-figurative laundry list of crimes included “grievous bodily harm” and arson for Rocket, while Gamora’s impressive list includes all the murders she committed for Thanos. Star Lord’s offences were mostly small-time robberies … with the exception of “having sex with members of a royal family.” As for Groot’s lack of incriminating trousers, that was going to be explained with a scene wherein he tears his pants off like he’s at a freakish alien bachelorette party.

3

Black Mirror — Random Props Imply That The Show All Takes Place In A Shared Universe

If you’re a fan of Black Mirror, you … well, you’re probably not reading this, because all your computers and devices are in a garbage bag in the woods where they can’t decide to murder you. When the show began, it seemed like a straightforward anthology series, like The Twilight Zone or that show where Freddy Krueger introduced scary stories while occasionally performing electric guitar solos.

In the most recent season, though, a bunch of props suggest that the show takes place in one universe, hopping between places and time periods. This was most evident in the season finale, “Black Museum,” in which the titular tourist trap is full of mementos from previous episodes, such as the lollipop and digital cloning machine from “U.S.S. Callister” …

Netflix

… the bathtub where the woman from “Crocodile” went full Jason Voorhees for some reason …

Netflix

… and one of the robot bees from the previous season’s “Hated In The Nation.”

NetflixYet nothing in this museum is crazier than the time the prime minister fucked a pig on TV.

But it’s not only this room full of garbage that introduced the idea of Black Mirror-verse. The entire show has an insane number of connecting threads. In the episode “Arkangel,” the daughter has a poster that says “Tusk” — not because in this twisted dystopia, teens are super into Kevin Smith body horror movies, but as a reference to the rapper Tusk from “Hated In The Nation.”

NetflixIncidentally, both episode titles are good names for rap albums.

In the beloved “San Junipero,” the digital afterlife’s bar is named Tucker’s, which we later find out is because the San Junipero simulation was made by “TCKR Systems.” Well, if you routinely scour Netflix with a magnifying glass, you would have already heard of TCKR from a magazine cover seen in an earlier episode, “Playtest.”

Netflix

Netflix

NetflixTo be fair, that’s a pretty common name for a company.

Even the robot-dog-infested apocalyptic future of “Metalhead” is hinted at in “Black Museum,” when a cable news ticker announces “autonomous military ‘dogs’ unveiled.”

Presumably, all of this is paving the way for an epic series finale in which it’s revealed that the entire show has been a simulation inside of another simulation created by a company trying to build the perfect simulation. And, like, your phone hates you or something.

2

OK, we said this article was about “recent” films, but honestly, who doesn’t watch Jurassic Park at least once a week? Seriously, tell us so we can block you. It’s a movie full of symbolism hiding in minor details, from a broken seat belt that foreshadows an important plot twist to a giant pile of shit that foreshadows the future sequels. And while you probably didn’t notice at the time, that brief scene in which John Hammond decides to eat his feelings with Jurassic Park’s assortment of ice creams was actually crucial to the story.

How? In one of the most exciting moments in the movie, Hammond’s grandson Tim escapes a velociraptor by noticing that the kitchen’s walk-in freezer is open, which gives him an idea.

After darting into the freezer but not shutting the door in time, the raptor follows Tim — but the floor is completely iced over, and they both slip like the Wet Bandits.

Since the raptor was smart enough to open a door, but not quite smart enough to throw on a pair of sneakers before the chase, Tim is able to get up quicker and condemn the raptor to the same fate as a box of Hot Pockets.

Universal PicturesBeing stolen by your roommate?

So why was the floor covered with ice? It makes total sense in the context of the movie. The power was out overnight, then restored by Laura Dern right in time for everything to freeze again. And why was the freezer door open in the first place? It’s not commented on, but earlier in the movie, Hammond is seen eating all the ice cream — because apparently sparing no expense also means not letting frozen treats go to waste. Or maybe he figured that if he was going to get eaten by dinos, he may as well have a tummy full of rocky road.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Hammond was downing Ben & Jerry’s like he was going through a bad break-up, that freezer door would have been closed, Tim likely would have been raptor food, and he never would have grown into Chris Pratt. (We think. Who’s paying attention anymore?)

1

Blade Runner 2049 — The Movie Is Chock Full Of Clues About The REAL Identity Of Deckard’s Kid

Blade Runner 2049 is the latest in a series of belated sequels wherein Harrison Ford throws on some comfy clothes to reprise an iconic role (look forward to an all-pajama-party sequel to Witness). The central mystery surrounds the child of Deckard and Rachael from the first movie, who turns out to be the reclusive Dr. Stelline. But what if it’s not her after all? What if the movie is subtly hinting that Deckard’s kid is, in fact, the villain’s main henchwoman, Luv?

First of all, Luv more closely resembles Rachael, and has the same job at Wallace’s HQ.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Warner Bros. PicturesOne has considerably mightier shoulders, though.

The movie gives us other visual suggestions that the two characters are linked, such as showing Luv shed a single tear out the same eye as Rachael does in the original.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Warner Bros. PicturesMaybe literally the same eye, if they believe in recycling.

When the duplicate Rachael shows up in 2049, the arrangement of the characters aligns so that Luv almost appears to be a reflection of Rachael.

In the same scene, Deckard rebukes Wallace’s offering of a duplicate Rachael, pointing out that the original’s eyes were green. When K (Ryan Gosling) later kills Luv, the camera lingers on her open eyes, which appear to be … green.

This doesn’t even really contradict anything in the movie, since there’s no confirmation that Stelline is Deckard’s daughter, other than K’s deduction. And what if Deckard’s child really was hidden in the last place anyone would think of: right under the nose of Wallace, the guy looking for her?

This would also explain her name. She’s the object of Deckard’s love, which he sacrificed everything for. It would also explain the odd moment when she tenderly strokes Harrison Ford’s grizzled cheek.

Warner Bros. PicturesAt least she didn’t impale him with a laser sword like her brother.

Plus — prepare to put on your tinfoil hats, folks — remember that weird poem K has to repeat every time he clocks out at the police station?

Warner Bros. Pictures

Warner Bros. Pictures

That’s a quote from Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire, which is also the book K has in his apartment.

Part of the novel is an extended epic poem about a protagonist whose daughter drowns. So isn’t it possible that this is hinting that the hero’s real daughter is the one who drowns at the end? We’d drop the mic, but probably shouldn’t, in case microphones have feelings and dreams about unicorns.

Police said they were called at about 00:45 BST to the property over reports of a burglary when they found Mr Vincent collapsed in nearby Further Green Road.

A witness said an accomplice dragged Mr Vincent toward a van before leaving him for dead. A second suspect fled the scene and is still being hunted by police.

Analysis, Simon Jones, BBC News

When we look at the law it is all down to what is considered to be “reasonable force” when someone is defending their home.

The law was clarified in 2013 to say if it was a highly stressful situation and if someone was under a great deal of pressure, then it would not be against the law to act using reasonable force.

It’s always debateable what reasonable force actually is. But there was an assumption that if someone entered your house and if you were genuinely petrified and you did take some action, such as we had in this case, then that could be considered reasonable.

Mr Osborn-Brooks was held on suspicion of murder and released following a consultation between Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service.

His arrest had provoked outcry from neighbours and an online fundraising campaign.

Det Ch Insp Harding said: “While there might be various forms of debate about which processes should be used in cases such as this, it was important that the resident was interviewed by officers under the appropriate legislation; not only for the integrity of our investigation but also so that his personal and legal rights were protected.”

Image copyrightPAImage caption Forensic officers investigate the drains near the scene in South Park Crescent

In January, Mr Vincent was named and pictured by Kent Police investigating a distraction burglary on a man in his 70s.

Family and friends paid tribute to him on social media.

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In the town of Shiogama in Miyagi Prefecture, there’s a residential neighborhood overlooking Matsushima Bay, the epicenter of Japan’s catastrophic March 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami. On a quiet street there, chef Hideyuki Irakawa and his wife, Michiko, have been serving samurai food from their restaurant, Chimatsushima, for the past two decades. The smoky, wholesome cuisine has given fighters a nutritional leg up for hundreds of years, but now its varied flavors are tempting a wide array of locals and tourists. The Irakawas have made it relevant for the 21st century by adding touches of artistry that feel distinctive to the Tohoku region; last year, when Miyagi prefecture celebrated its inaugural Michelin Guide, theirs was one of 11 local restaurants to earn an initial star.

Tohoku, which makes up the entire northeast of Honshu, Japan’s main island, is essentially the country’s New England, with colorful foliage in the fall and extremely snowy winters. It’s also where samurai cuisine rose to prominence in the 1600s, during the important Edo period. Back then, Japan’s prized athletes typically ate a simple diet of miso soup and brown rice to carbo-load for battle. Adding textural variety and strong flavors helped encourage them to consume more grain, so kitchens of the era experimented with adding distinctive, salty side dishes: pickled vegetables and plums, seaweed, and natto, a fermented soybean paste.

Both samurai cuisine and the Tohoku region remain wildly under the radar. Only 1.3 percent of foreign tourists to Japan venture to Miyagi or Tohoku’s five other prefectures—Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, and Yamagata. But some of the world’s most recognized chefs, from Daniel Boulud to David Bouley, have taken a fascination with Tohoku’s culinary history, and Michelin’s support is only catalyzing the prefecture’s reputation as a bastion for top-notch, warrior-worthy eats.

An old samurai house in Kakunodate, a city in Akita prefecture.

Photographer: Ross Kenneth Urken

A variety of traditional tsukemono, or Japanese pickles.

Photographer: David Clapp/Photolibrary RM

The Building Blocks of a Butt-Kicking Diet

The rise of samurai cuisine is largely credited to Masamune Date, a feudal warlord known as the One-Eyed Dragon of Oshu. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, he was the most powerful samurai in Tohoku—but he was also known as a culinary innovator.

To this day, cooks produce a strong red miso made with soybeans and (a mold that replaces malt) that’s fermented and aged at a brewery near the base of Sendai Castle, which Date built in 1593. It’s the star ingredient at restaurants like Nacrée, a Michelin one-star spot designed by Kengo Kuma. There, Chef Minoru Ogata—a former sous chef at the three-star L’Astrance, in Paris—uses the miso to marinade thick cuts of roasted bacon.

This condiment is also a bit of a status symbol. Eric C. Rath, a University of Kansas professor specializing in dietary cultures of premodern Japan, says that because miso improves with age, it traditionally carried a socio-economic heft among the warrior class. “If you want to demonstrate that you have wealth as a samurai, you bring out a three-year-old miso—it’s like bringing out an aged Bordeaux,” he said.

A selection of mochi, or Japanese rice cakes, includes yukiwari (“snow-breaking) natto in the bottom left corner.

Photographer: Ross Kenneth Urken

Another key element to Tohoku’s samurai diet is (“snow-breaking”) soybean paste, which includes more salt and koji than the traditional version. Versions of the dish have been consumed since the 11th century; it has the texture of caramel and the pungency of a stinky cheese, and is meant to efficiently fill up your belly, restore warmth, and provide the energy for battle. (As a side bonus, it’s also a known-probiotic and immune system booster.) At Chimatsushima, Chef Irakawa serves yukiwari natto with a dollop of red beans and rice—then the whole dish is garnished with gold leaf, lotus root, wasabi, ginkgo nuts, seaweed jelly, and the Japanese citrus .

, or pickled vegetables, are the last pillar of a complete samurai diet. Given the lack of refrigeration, pickling helped the warriors eat vegetables out of season, and the brininess and crunch helped break up the monotony of rice. In Tohoku, the most common variety is made with daikon radishes that are smoldered over chestnut and cherry wood chips, then pickled in rice bran, salt, and sugar for several months. The result is called , or “wood-smoldered pickles,” and it’s more homey and smoky than your typical, vinegary cucumber.

In the Global Spotlight

Kamaishi, a little-visited town in the Iwate prefecture of Tohoku.

Photographer: Getty Images/MIXA

Despite the broader attention, restaurateurs and other hospitality industry leaders have had trouble fully capitalizing on the region’s recent renown, says Elizabeth Andoh, author of Kibō: Recipes and Stories from Japan’s Tohoku. “To some extent, a shadow of concern still remains regarding the safety of Tohoku’s food and possible radiation contamination.” This sentiment persists, she says, despite Japan’s rigorous food-safety monitoring.

And though the 2011 Fukushima disaster brought much tragedy, it did result in added attention to the region and its food from notable sources: famed chefs Daniel Boulud, David Bouley, Patrice Martineau, and Michael Romano all traveled to Tohoku to show solidarity with the region and promote its food. Romano, a chef-partner of Union Square Cafe and director of culinary development for Union Square Hospitality Group, says his visit to the Tohoku town of Kamaishi was “one of the most memorable events of my life.”

The new-found accolades from Michelin are poised to reinforce that message. So, too, is a project called “New Tohoku,” whose aim is to revitalize the region and welcome tourists; it’s run by a government entity called the Reconstruction Agency that’s repositioning Tohoku around its samurai culinary offerings and rich warrior traditions such as swordsmanship.

The Ochanoma Lounge at the Hoshinoya Tokyo.

Source: Hoshinoya Tokyo

Awareness of samurai cuisine is spreading beyond Tohoku. In Tokyo, the new Hoshinoya hotel was constructed on top of an old samurai house of the Sekai family, and chef Noriyuki Hamada serves his food, including plenty of pickled radishes, on reclaimed wood dishes made from the former structure. At Elements, a Michelin one-star in Bangkok that features French food with hints of Japanese influence, the chef serves . And , the wildly popular fictional series that began streaming on Netflix last year, is about the pickled food cravings of a Japanese retiree with a samurai alter ego.

“All of these communities across [Japan] are scratching their heads: “‘What kinds of foods do we have to draw visitors?’” says Rath, the professor. “In the wake of the 3/11 disaster, accentuating the samurai connection with Tohoku foods certainly places them in a more positive light.”

My name is Marta and I have a dream to be the best at sculpting with plasticine.

I remember when I was a child I would make little clay animals and place them around the kitchen. I have always loved surrounding myself with tiny figurines – I really liked feeling the comfort of their presence. There is something very magical about creating three dimensional pieces, I sometimes think they might come alive when I am asleep.

I have recently challenged myself to make 100 clay creatures as a part of 100 day project. You can follow my adventures on Instagram.

Benjamin Morrow was found dead with white supremacist literature and the ingredients for a notorious bomb known as the Mother of Satan.

Morrow, 28, died in an explosion in the kitchen of his Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, apartment on March 5. His home was filled with bomb-making substances so volatile that firefighters chose to destroy the 16-unit apartment block in a controlled blaze, rather than let Morrows neighbors continue to live in the building. A search warrant unsealed last week revealed that Morrow kept white supremacist literature in his home. Investigators application for a second warrant suggests that Morrow had plans, announcing that he was clearing out a rented storage locker just hours before his death.

Kevin Heimerl of the Wisconsin Department of Justice called Morrows apartment a homemade explosives laboratory. When they responded to reports of an explosion at the home, investigators passed a one gallon metal container of acetone, an investigator told a judge in a newly unsealed warrant application.

Acetone is an explosive substance and ingredient in the Mother of Satan: a volatile bomb used by terrorists in ISIS attacks in Manchester, England, and Paris, France, in recent years.

Also sitting in plain sight where two white cardboard boxes stamped with the words mix it, shake it, shoot it, and three more packages labeled sonic boom, Heimerl testified, adding that he suspected the boxes contained materials that would explode when combined. Investigators also found pipes and pipe caps in the apartment.

When they entered the kitchen, investigators found Morrow dead in front of a still-lit stove. An overpressure blast had destroyed much of the room, blowing out the doors and windows and burying Morrow under the collapsed ceiling. Containers with more chemicals were spilling out an open refrigerator door.

The scene was so volatile that authorities barred the rest of the apartment buildings residents from re-entering their homes, and burned the entire building to the ground in a 1,600-degree controlled blaze overseen by 100 firefighters. Residents left their valuables inside. One of Morrows neighbors told the Wisconsin State Journal he planned on digging through the rubble to find a dead relatives World War II dog tags, which had been left inside to burn.

At the time of the fire, the contents of Morrows apartment remained a mystery. But an unsealed warrant describes Morrow as building a terrifying arsenal.

In addition to more bomb-making materials, Morrow also had a collection of guns and accessories including a rifle scope, masks, vests, a ballistic helmet, and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Morrow also had white supremacist material in his bedroom, the warrant said.

It does cause me some concern but I want to make very clear just because Mr. Morrow was in the possession of this material, does not categorize in any particular light, Lt. Terrence Gebhardt told CBS 58. He could have been an individual that was doing research.

But state investigators suggested the opposite. In an application for a search warrant, Heimerl raised the possibility that Morrow had worked with or been inspired by others, pointing to the white supremacist literature when a judge asked about propaganda that raises concern for this kind of collaborative work.

The investigator who swept Morrows room described the literature as relating to white supremacist groups that will involve multiple members in potentially violent activities. He did not specify which groups were named in the literature.

Members of Morrows church community have pushed back on the idea that Morrow built the bombs in his bedroom and kitchen, for which investigators found handwritten instructions.

Id love to defend Ben because he has been described as a bomb maker and hes not a bomb maker, Rev. Jerry Marsden, the pastor who conducted Morrows funeral told the Associated Press. He wasnt a recluse as some have said he is. He was far from that.

In an obituary, Morrows family described him as a religious man, who grew up homeschooled and later studied pre-pharmacy, math, and chemistry at Pensacola Christian College in Florida. The search warrant revealed Morrow had a Bible among his white supremacist literature and bomb-making material.

When he wasnt building bombs, he worked as a quality control technician at Richelieu Foods, according to his LinkedIn profile. His coworkers told investigators Morrow sometimes came to work with an unpleasant smell on his clothes.

Some of those co-workers reported that it was common for Benjamin Morrow to arrive for work and he had an odor emitting from his person that co-workers described as smelling like moth balls, Heimerl told a judge in an application for a second warrant. Those co-workers further stated that they had made comments to Benjamin Morrow about the fact that they could smell moth balls on him.

Mothballs are made of flammable chemicals, which may explain the smell.

The second warrant application reveals that police were interested in the contents of a storage unit Morrow rented. On the morning of the fatal explosion, Morrow visited the storage company and notified the business that he would be moving his personal property out of the storage unit by the end of March, Heimerl told the judge in the warrant application, speculating that Morrow might have rented the storage unit to keep strong-smelling chemicals from his home.

The second warrant, the findings of which are not public, also extend to Morrows computers, flash drives, and phone. The records could reveal where Morrow received the white supremacist literatureand whether he was acting alone.

I am aware that a person could work solely to connect this type of manufacturing homemade explosives themselves, Heimerl said. But I am also equally aware that individuals oftentimes communicate, inspire and engage with other persons to manufacture homemade explosives.